Styx Military
The Styx Military refers to the Styx males who fought for the Styx's dominance and power. They were trained from birth to fight, and they guarded the Colony, the Eternal City, and the Deeps. The Styx Military was handicapped by its lack of armored vehicles, warships, and an air force until the fall of New Germania. Units The Styx used several types of soldiers to achieve their aims: The Colonist Militia These Colonists were highly trusted by the Styx, and sometimes accompanied them in combat. The Styx mainly used them for menial Topsoil surveillance missions or as cannon fodder to distract a target while highly trained Limiters snuck in for the kill. The Surface Division: The first Styx to appear in the series. Their role was to manipulate Topsoil events and kidnap Topsoilers who made the mistake of arousing the Styx Panoply's interest, either scientists whose work the Styx desired for themselves or Topsoilers who discovered the Colony and may reveal its secrets to the wider world. They were usually seen in either the Styx's trademark long, black leather coats or in disguise. One of the Surface Division's favorite disguises was that of a Topsoil tramp, the average Styx needing only a few months of beard growth and a generous pasting of filth to be indistinguishable from a homeless Topsoiler. They were helped by the Colonist Militia and their Topsoiler agents, who were seduced, bribed, threatened, or Darklit into doing the Styx's bidding. The Division The second type of Styx soldier to appear. They were mostly found patrolling The Colony, specifically the Skull Gate, and The Eternal City. They wore gas masks to guard against the pathogens in the Eternal City and a long, green camouflage coat. The Division's soldiers had inferior combat skills as compared to the Limiters, but they made up for it with their heavy artillery and cavalry. The Division were sometimes drafted into serving in the Deeps when the Limiters were overstretched, such as the purge of the Deeps before the Styx planned to unleash the Dominion virus. The Limiters First appearing in Deeper, these Styx commandos were most commonly found patrolling The Deeps and The Great Plain although they sometimes assisted the Surface Division in abducting Topsoilers, the Division in patrolling the City, and they escorted the Scientists on their trips to the Eternal City to gather diseases that the Styx can use. They were best known for their fearlessness, phenomenal accuracy, self-sufficiency, and the widespread rumors about their eating of unfortunate renegades in the Deeps. Despite being a key part of many of the Styx's operations, they were rarely seen in the Colony, and were mainly used there as an admonisment to naughty children (Be good or the Limiters will eat you!) They wore a tan version of the Division's camoflage. One Limiter made it all the way to New-Germania with The Rebeccas, before he was killed in Freefall. The New Germanian Army: Founded nearly seventy years ago along with the rest of New Gemania, the Styx gained control of this organization in Closer. It had a Special Forces unit, armored vehicles, an air force, and a navy. The Styx mostly used the New Germanians in suicide attacks on Topsoil targets, as hosts for the Phase, as guards, or as the people who delivered meat to the Styx women and the growing Warrior Class. This last job was more dangerous than it sounded, as Styx women, carried away in the Phase, would sometimes eat their male counterparts if the men let their guard down, so Styx males delegate this task to expendible slaves. The Warrior Class: These Styx are very rare, only being produced by the Phase, which can be thousands or millions of years apart. They begin life as one of thirty larvae in an egg sac implanted into a human host by their mother. After implantation, the larvae devour the host from the inside, absorbing part of the host's genome as their own. After a week, the host's carcass is depleted of nutrient and they burst out to search for more food. At this point, they resemble five-inch long maggots with sharp teeth. As they eat more, they sprout limbs, a head, and a tail. After absorbing enough protein, they enter pupation, turning into an adult in the period of two weeks. When this is over, the Warrior Class look almost exactly like other Styx, except for having an ovipositor similar to that of their mother's, which they use to implant their own children into hosts. Emotionally, they are a void, having only the desires to eat, kill, and reproduce, following orders and only stopping when ordered to or having nothing left to kill, being incredibly good at it because they do not fear death. The Warrior Class were destroyed in the Old Guard's attack on the factory. [[Armagi|'Armagi']]:' Like the Warrior Class, these Styx are produced by the Phase. However, they are only produced if the Warrior Class is losing the battle for Earth. They are produced the same way as the Warrior Class, have the same emotional makeup, and can reproduce like them, but are far more fearsome because they can change shape in order to accomplish the mission assigned to them. The Armagi have two forms, a humanoid form indistinguishable from the Warrior Class, and a shape-shifting form, a transparent, six limbed monstrosity. They can change their limbs into claws as sharp as swords, flippers, or wings. They can also regenerate, meaning that they can grow back lost limbs in hours, and that by cutting one into pieces, each piece will grow into a new Armagi, allowing for the rapid creation of armies from a single individual. They also have enhanced senses and greater muscle mass, and may be telepathic. The memory of the memory of these fearsome creatures inspired the Topsoil word "Armageddon." The Armagi were produced by Alex after the Old Guard's attack on the Styx's factory where the Phase was occurring. The Styx then used the Armagi to attack England during the Recall War. Equipment The Styx are fearsome warriors, but lag technologically behind Topsoilers in most areas. Styx soldiers wear variations on the Styx's long, black leather coat. These coats are made of supple leather as to avoid the trademark creaking of the regular coat, which could give a soldier's position away. The Division wears a green and gray camouflage coat with a gas mask and head covering. The Limiters wear a tan and brown camouflage coat with a gas mask and head covering. Division soldiers and Limiters are most often seen in four-man patrols accompanied by a Stalker dog, although larger or smaller groups of Styx are sometimes seen. The Stalker dogs are bred in the Colony for ferocity and size, and in combat the Styx usually turn them loose to attack enemies. Stalkers are very good trackers, but this can be a weakness, as renegades leave a moisture sucking lichen that damages Stalker's smell organs in their tracks. The Armagi are usually seen hunting in pairs. Styx soldiers are usually armed with the Styx's trademark scythes and long rifles, although the Limiter detachment guarding the Phase factory was issued pistols so as not to stand out Topsoil. The scythe is a curved, ten inch long dagger that can either be thrown or used as a sword. The Styx literally carry them up their sleeves, although they also may be sheathed on the belt. The long rifle is a .35 caliber bolt-action rifle with one of Drake's night scopes mounted on the top. It is handbuilt for the Styx in the Colony, and very accurate. They are considered valuable, evidenced by how the Limiters the Old Styx commanded to jump into the Pore for their failure to prevent the Rebecca Twins's fall down it left their long rifles at the top of the Pore. The Styx possess cavalry and howitzers, operated by crews from the Division, but technologically, they are mostly behind the Topsoil military. The one area where they are ahead is subsonics, where they have the Dark Light brainwashing device, the Subaural Bomb, which knocks everything in its blast radius unconcious, and the Sub-aural Field, which they put up around the entrances to the Colony to knock out anyone trying to escape. The Styx military inherited a large amount of more military hardware when they captured New Germania, but they hadn't moved it from the inner world before Drake's nuclear weapons sealed it off, and the equipment was lost. History 'Far Past The Styx military was founded in the distant past. During the Romanian Phase, they assassinated Vlad the Impaler's enemies in exchange for him providing the Styx hosts for the Phase. However, their work was for nothing, as he renenged on his deal and had his knights kill the Styx women and the infant Warrior Class. Some Styx soldiers escaped the plague in the Eternal City, and their descendants are the soldiers that Drake's group faces in the current day. ''Tunnels As Will and Chester investigate the disappearance of Will's father, they are stalked by the Colonist Militia. When they reach the Colony, the Colonist Police take them prisoner, and they are interrogated by the Styx. After Will rescues Chester, a Rebecca Twin leads a group of Styx to recapture them. She partially succeeds, capturing Chester as Will, Cal, and Bartleby escape into the Eternal City. While in the ruined city, they nearly run into a squad of the Division, but aren't seen. On their return to the city, they run into a Division patrol. They lose Bartleby as he fights the patrol's Stalker. To distract the pursuing Styx, Will sets off fireworks, attracting more Styx, as well as Imago and Uncle Tam. As Uncle Tam tries to help them escape the city through one of his smuggling routes, they are ambushed by the Crawfly and a host of Division soldiers. Tam kills the Crawfly in single combat, but sacrifices his life to delay the Division so that Imago and the boys can escape into the Labyrinth. Later, a Rebecca Twin assassinates Imago Topsoil by poisoning his food. Deeper In preparation for the unleashing of the Dominion virus on the Topsoil population, the Styx are purging elements in the Colony, the Deeps, and Topsoil that could derail their plans. Topsoil, the Surface Division goes on a purge of the cells that oppose the Styx. In the Deeps, the Limiters go on a genocidal rampage to obliterate the renegades and the Coprolites who trade with them, aided by Tom Cox, who has decided to help the Styx. Two of the renegades, Drake and Elliott, prove particularly difficult to catch, despite having the burden of caring for the untrained Will, Cal, and Chester. To assist the Limiters, a detachment of the Division is called in, with cavalry that can run renegades down on the open spaces of the Great Plain and howitzers to drive them out of hard to reach areas. Despite these measures, Drake and Elliott kill some Limiters, but they manage to separate the two renegades. They then call in Sarah Jerome, whom the Surface Division has tricked into believing that Will killed Uncle Tam. She and Bartleby, accompanied by a Limiter patrol, set off on the task of tracking down Elliott and the boys. After the Limiters are killed in one of Elliott's booby traps on the island, Sarah sets off alone to confront Will and learn the truth, but she is shot by Elliott, who mistakes her for a Limiter. After the group leaves her for dead, she is picked up by another Limiter patrol, but they are driven off by Drake. Meanwhile, the Styx herd the group towards the Pore, where an ambush has been set up for them. At the Pore, they are met by both Rebecca Twins, a firing squad of Limiters, a pack of Stalkers, and the Division's heavy artillery. The Rebecca Twins reveal that there have been two of them all along, that they have killed Imago and Grandma Macaulay, and that they plan to wipe out Topsoilers with the Dominion virus. Cal is killed by the firing squad, and Drake and Sarah are helpless to watch as the Division's artillery blows the others into the Pore. As the Rebecca Twins look down into the Pore to make sure that the group aren't hanging on below, a dying Sarah runs at the them and knocks them into the Pore in her last act in life. Freefall The Old Styx had one group of Limiters search the upper reaches of the Pore for the Rebeccas with their light scopes, and another detachment comb the ground around the Pore, in the hope that the Rebeccas caught a handhold on the side of the Pore or had the presence of mind to unhook the phials from around their necks before Sarah knocked them into the Pore. He sent another squad to secure the Bunker, where the Dominion virus was tested, but they find that Drake has destroyed it. Meanwhile, in the Colony, the Division razed the Rookeries, a ghetto for the Colony's poor and malcontents, to the ground and massacring its inhabitants. In return for their failure to capture Sarah Jerome before she seemingly killed the Rebeccas, the Old Styx commanded three Limiters to leap into the Pore. One of them killed himself on the way down, but the other two linked up with the still-alive Rebeccas. The marooned Styx formed a plan: one of the Rebeccas and her Limiter will search independently for a way out, while her sister will attach herself to Will's group, and be shadowed by the other Limiter. When the twin arrived at Martha's Shack, Chester and Martha were in favor of killing her, but Will had mercy on the Styx girl. Meanwhile, the other Styx group has found Dr. Burrows and tries to make him decode an Ancient map that he found in order to find them a way out. When Will's group decides to head for the Russian submarine, the Limiter following them left signs for the other group to follow. On the way, Will saved the Rebecca Twin's life when she tripped near a lava flow and couldn't get up due to her leg being injured in her fall down the Pore. When Will's group reaches the submarine, the Styx twin saved Elliott's life with her knowledge of antibiotics. When the Styx group arrived at the submarine, a confrontation occured. One of the Limiters was devoured by a Bright, and the remaining Styx took shelter in the submarine, only for their shelter to be dislodged from its perch and continue its journey down the void by one of Elliott's explosive charges. After Will and his father find a route Topsoil, the Surface Division takes potshots at them as they look for Mrs. Burrows with Drake's help. When they manage to find Will's mother, they brief her on the situation and their plans. After Mrs. Burrows tells Benjamin Wilbrahams, one of the Styx's agents, that they have the Rebecca Twins and the Dominion Phials, the Styx set up an ambush on Highfield common, where Drake, Leatherman, and their ex-commando buddies plan on ambushing the Old Styx and taking him prisoner. Two of the Styx's agents, Oscar Embers and Mrs. Tantrumi, detonate a subaural bomb, incapacitating the Topsoil fighters and much of Highfield, but not the Limiters, who are wearing special earplugs that protect them from the sound waves. The Limiters then take the Topsoilers down to the Colony, except for Drake who is saved by Eddie. The Styx are livid to learn from their interrogations of Mrs. Burrows that the Topsoilers don't have the twins, and the phials they were shown contain Ultra Bug, a relatively harmless form of Dominion the Styx created to test the virus's spread. However, the Styx learn that the Rebecca Twins are still alive, and dispatch a 50-man company of Limiters into the Pore to find them. In the Inner World, the Rebecca Twins and the surviving Limiter have made a camp at an abandoned mine, and have grown complacent in a land without enemies. This allows Will and Elliott to sneak up on them while the Rebecca Twins have removed their jackets (containing the Dominion Phials) to swim in the pond. One of the twins sights Will as he attempts to steal the phials, and he shoots her with a Sten SMG. The Limiter manages to wound Will with a spear before he is sniped by Elliott. Elliott then sets off her charges, turning the area into a firestorm. Closer Rebecca Two saves her life and that of her wounded sister by jumping into the pond. By swimming downward, she discovers an abandoned mine shaft that isn't flooded. There, she tends to her sister's wound before setting off towards the other end, hoping to find help. On the way, an open-air portion of the shaft reveals the city of New Germania below. When she reaches the end of the line, she spots a flare from the company of Limiters assigned to rescue her and her sister. She signals back by setting fire to the fuel tanks at the end of the mine shaft. Then Rebecca Two, carrying her unconscious sister, sets off towards the city. When she gets there, she is met by a platoon of the New Germanian Army led by Captain Franz. The New Germanians are distrustful of the Styx, but the arrival of the fearsome Limiters, led by the Limiter General, intimidates them into helping the girls. The Styx then persuade the Chancellor to help them find their virus. He assigns Colonel Bismarck, Captain Franz, and a detachment of New Germanian Special Forces to help them find the group. The Styx and their new allies set off for the pyramids in thirteen Fa 223 helicopters. After recovering the virus, the Styx then take over New Germania, darklighting the New Germanians who accompanied them (except for Colonel Bismarck, who was ferrying Will and Elliott away from the pyramid), and then returning to the city and darklighting the people there. Meanwhile, Drake and Eddie knock out a Division patrol as they plant pesticide bombs in the Eternal City to exterminate the Plague Snails. Chester's presence is revealed when he wounded the Limiter accompanying the patrol, who was about to shoot Drake. Drake and Chester then, after knocking out Eddie, destroy the Laboratories and rescue Mrs. Burrows. Later, the Rebecca Twins return Topsoil via the balloon system the Styx set up in the Pore to return their soldiers while most of the Limiters remain in the Inner World to rule New Germania. The Styx then test out their new army with a strike on the Royal Mint. Spiral The Styx continue to attack targets with their New Germanian slaves, sending the country into a deep economic recession. In the Colony, Division soldiers on horseback acclimatize the New Germanians to the higher levels of gravity Topsoil before sending them on missions. The Styx then alienate Britain from the rest of the world with "human bombs" attacks, basically, darklighting a person, implanting a powerful explosive device into their body, and sending them to assassinate foreign leaders. These attacks cause Britain to close its borders and go under martial law. The objective of this was to weaken England in preparation for the Phase. The Styx bought a factory in Slough, where they prepared the Human Bombs, but they converted it to another use: the site of the Phase. The factory was guarded by Limiters and New Germanians, and hundreds of darklit human hosts are moved inside in preparation for the Phase. Finally, the Styx women arrived and began to implant egg sacs into the hosts. The larvae in the egg sacs will grow into the Warrior Class. However, before the Warrior Class reached maturity, the factory was attacked by the Old Guard and all of the Styx women, guards, hosts, and larvae were killed, except for the Rebecca Twins, Vane, and Alex, who were warned by Danforth about the impending assault. The Rebeccas split up, Rebecca One and Vane heading to the inner world to continue the Phase in New Germania, and Rebecca Two and Alex remaining Topsoil to induce the older Styx girls and continue the Phase on the surface. The Old Styx and a squad of Limiters took over a health spa in order as the new Topsoil site. The humans did not find this site, and the Styx were able to breed their army in peace. In the Inner World, things did not go so well. Although the higher levels of UV light allowed Vane to implant egg sacs in more hosts than she could Topsoil, Danforth had revealed where the Styx were moving the Phase to to Drake's group, and they made appropriate plans. Drake brought two nuclear bombs into the inner world to seal it off, but Vane detected Elliott entering the Inner World due to Elliott's mixed Styx/human heritage causing her to emit Phase pheromones. Vane and Rebecca One, backed up by a Limiter patrol, then intercepted the group as they prepared to leave the Inner World. In the scuffle, Colonel Bismarck and all of the Limiters were killed, Drake and the Rebecca twin fell into the void, and Vane was captured by Sweeney. As Drake and Rebecca One fell through the void, Drake detonated the nuclear bombs, killing them both. The electromagnetic pulse from the blast overloaded the circuitry in Sweeney's head, killing him. As he fell, he burst the phial containing the virus, and it escaped to kill all mammalian life in the Garden of the Second Sun, including the New Germainians, Bushmen, and Styx. Will and Elliott were not harmed by the virus as they had been vaccinated for it, but they were trapped in the inner world because the exits had been sealed. On the surface, a Styx girl, Emma, had just been sent away after failing to be induced when the Armagi began to hatch. Terminal'' The Styx and their Armagi cohorts rampaged across England. Category:Antagonists Category:Tunnels Category:Deeper Category:Freefall Category:Closer Category:Spiral Category:Terminal